Introduction

Eternal God, who heals my hurts and restores my soul, teach

me to wait on you not for what I might receive but for what
I might give. Still my hurried heart to hear you this day.
Amen.

We live in a world that waits for nothing. Abstinence programs

have limited appeal. Young couples regularly overextend them-
selves. Families live beyond their means. We have, for the most part,
shaken off restraint and embraced a stunning degree of materialism,
consumerism, and hedonism. Comfort and pleasure have become
the supreme goals of life. And we pursue it with credit and debt.
In 2006, Americans held about 984 million Visa and Master­
card accounts—three for every man, woman, and child in the
country—and by the end of 2008, the total consumer debt in the
United States had reached $2.56 trillion.1 If we take that staggering

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figure and spread it across the total population, it means that personal
household debt at that time amounted to about $8,400 for every
individual. And that excludes any home mortgage debt.
Clever advertising fuels the credit craze by insisting that we
need not wait for what we want. In fact, we can have it now and
pay for it later—much later, in some instances.
In past generations, when credit was not so readily available, eating
out, getting gasoline, buying clothes, making small home improve-
ments, and a dozen other regular expenses were all paid for with cash,
or folks waited. Our culture has long since wearied of waiting.
The pace of life that we embrace means that every wait rep-
resents a waste of our time. So we grumble when the computer
takes two minutes to boot up. We eat a lot of fast food. We live
attached to our cell phones or BlackBerrys so we can quickly pick
up every call, text message, or email—even while on vacation. We
view the yellow traffic light as an invitation to “put the pedal to
the metal” rather than brake. Then we grow impatient if the traffic
lights remain red for long. Our irritation level rises exponentially
in checkout lines, train stations, restaurants, and doctors’ offices—
not to mention the dreaded Department of Motor Vehicles. None
of us likes to wait. There’s simply too much to do!

The Pace of Life

Until the eighteenth century, the pace of life rarely exceeded the
walking pace of a horse. People traveled short distances at relatively
slow speeds. Or if they went far, they took a long time to do so.
Twenty miles was considered a solid day’s ride. But with the Industrial
Revolution all of that changed. Steam-powered ships, railways, and
mass-produced motor vehicles began to accelerate the pace.
In more recent times, that pace has increased even further.
In the 1970s, we communicated with letters that we could send
quickly—even overnight—by various mail carriers. In the 1980s,

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we enjoyed faster communication through fax machines. In the

1990s, the rise of email let us send out more messages than ever
before, as long as we had access to a computer. In the 2000s,
we’ve turned to text messaging with its own shorthand—LOL,
BFF, CU—that communicates in ultra-short messages rather than
expressive pages. Facebook and Twitter keep our friends and sub-
scribers constantly aware of what’s happening with us. Commu-
nication, which should involve deeper knowledge of each other,
has diminished to quick and usually superficial levels.
Recently one of my sons managed to exchange 3,000 text mes-
sages in one of his first months with a cell phone. When I mentioned
this to some friends, they shared that
their daughter had racked up 13,000
text messages in the same period—433
text messages every day of the month;
As the speed of our lives
an average of one message about every increases, the quality of
two minutes of every waking hour for a our relationships usually
month. Quick, brief, and constant com- decreases.
munication has dramatically changed
the number of demands we have to
juggle in any given day.
An interesting study carried out in the early 1990s demonstrated
that the speed at which pedestrians walk provides a reliable measure
of the pace of life in a city, and that people in fast-moving cities
are less likely to help others, and have higher rates of coronary
heart disease. Research teams discovered that the pace of life rose
10 percent over a decade in many cities. The researchers simply
measured the time it took for people, unaware that they were being
studied, to walk sixty feet. Interestingly, Singapore emerged as the
fastest city in the world by this measurement, with the average
pedestrian covering sixty feet in a zippy 10.55 seconds.2
All of this highlights the exponential increase in our pace of

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life, something we hardly need to be told. And the impact on our

relationships and quality of life is proving devastating. A funda-
mental principle holds true: As the speed of our lives increases, the
quality of our relationships usually decreases.
We’ve all had this experience. The workplace adds increasing
pressure, stress, and time demands that result, inevitably, in less time
with a spouse and children, less time in meaningful relational groups,
and less time with friends. The increased speed at work has a corol-
lary—poorer relationships everywhere else. Similarly, when we sit
at lunch watching the clock, it’s hard to fully engage with the person
across the table. Faster lives diminish our meaningful connections.
Of course, some occasions demand speed. When the building
catches fire, we had better race out rather than chat on a sofa with
someone. But our time-oriented culture has put such a squeeze on
every waking moment that it’s little wonder marriages continue to
collapse at an alarming rate, and we simply dream about meaning-
ful friendships rather than experience them.
We live in a world that waits for nothing—and it’s killing us
in more ways than we know.

Hurrying (Past) God

In the midst of our mad scramble—what we bravely but vainly
call the “good life”—we also find ourselves harboring deep-seated
impatience with God. We have little time to nurture a relationship
with Him and generally feel that He should run at least as fast as
we do. If we have a problem right now, then right now would be a
good time for the Lord to step in and deal with it. We squeeze in a
quick prayer request while changing lanes in rush-hour traffic and
expect the Lord to fire back a quick answer, preferably a positive
one. All the while we’re rushing Him and rushing past Him.
On January 12, 2007, world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell
participated in an experiment organized by the Washington Post.

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Three days earlier Bell had played at Boston’s stately Symphony

Hall, where concert patrons had paid at least $100 per ticket to
hear the virtuoso. For the experiment, he agreed to be a busker at
a Washington, D.C. metro train station where people could lean
against a wall and listen to him for free.
Wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nation-
als baseball cap, Bell treated the commuter crowd to some of the
greatest violin music ever composed. For forty-three minutes at
L’Enfant Plaza, as low-level bureaucrats got off their trains on the
way to work, he delivered masterpieces by Bach, Schubert, and
others. Not only did he play some of the most moving pieces ever
written, but he did so on his $3.5 million violin—a 300-year-old
Stradivarius.

Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three

people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough
of sorts. A middle-aged man altered his gait for a split second,
turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy play-
ing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.
A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman
threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes
into the performance that someone actually stood against a
wall, and listened.
Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an
hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they
were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at
least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on
the run—for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070
people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away,
few even turning to look.3

How often do we do the same thing to God? We’re in a hurry

and expect God to address our concerns when we schedule time
for Him. But life is generally far too pressing to “lean against a wall

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and listen.” Many of us would excuse the poor train commuters.

After all, they had places to be. Why would they stop when they
were watching the clock? Who wants to be late for work? And that’s
precisely the point. Their hurry deafened them to the extraordinary
music reverberating around the metro that morning. In the same
way, our hurry through life threatens to blunt our awareness of the
extraordinary Presence of Christ who sits so much more quietly in
the wings of our lives. Aren’t most of us watching the clock most
of the time?

The Bible and Waiting

Throughout the Scriptures we read the stories of men and
women who learned the significance of waiting and the peril of
rushing. The prophet Isaiah declared to the people of his day, “They
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31
kjv). Several centuries earlier, the psalmist sang with the confi-
dence of someone who has discovered an important secret: “My
soul waits in silence for God only” (Psalm 62:1 nasb). Jesus, after
His resurrection, did not drive His disciples out into the world in
a frenzied bid to do as much as possible as fast as possible. Instead,
He instructed them to wait in Jerusalem
(see Acts 1:4).
Wait. Wait. Wait. We don’t have
In Scripture, waiting time to waste. Life feels too short, the
is not an option but a opportunities (and needs) too many.
mandate. Besides, he who hesitates is lost. But
time and again, God calls us to wait. He
refuses to fit our demands and sched-
ules. In contrast, He expects us to con-
form to His plans and rely on His timing. And in the process we
learn deep, transforming truths.
Waiting on God runs against every cultural instinct that we

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have. We wait for nothing. Yet we find that in Scripture, waiting

is not an option but a mandate.

Defining the Terms

When our family eats out, we usually hit fast-food chains—with
coupons. But occasionally we splurge and sit down in a restaurant.
The chief difference, apart from the price, is that these nicer establish-
ments have waiters, and these table waiters can teach us much about
the biblical concept of waiting.
Typically, when we think of waiting, we think of killing time
until our goal or destination is reached. Waiting for the bus to arrive
means standing idly until it finally pulls up at the curb. Waiting
for graduation means counting down the days until we receive our
diploma. Waiting for medical attention means hanging on until we
can be treated. In other words, waiting represents what we have to
do between two points in time to get what we really want.
Sacred waiting—waiting on God—is nothing like that.
The restaurant waiter has two main tasks. First, greeting us
(which may include chatting with us, listening to us, and just
being present with us). The initial responsibility is to make us feel
welcome, comfortable, and at ease. Waiting on us means being
present with us and building a connection with us, albeit briefly,
because a waiter is usually waiting on others, too. But we shouldn’t
overlook this element of “presence.”
Second, the waiter serves us. (Actually, waiters are more often
called servers today.) He waits on us by attending to our specific
requests when we make them, meeting our needs when he sees them,
and serving our food. His service is fundamental. A happy waiter
who fails to deliver what we ask for has failed his responsibility.
Biblically speaking, this forms the essence of waiting on God: pres-
ence and service, which involve drawing closer to Him and responding
to His leading. It’s vastly different from the way in which we typically

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use the word wait. We’re not watching the clock. We’re not counting
down to some particular event or calling. Rather, a lifetime of waiting
on God reflects a lifetime of simple presence and service.
Along the way, a great many things happen. The Father makes
requests that may take a lot of time. He makes promises without
delineating time frames. He remains relatively silent for long peri-
ods. We suffer distractions and hardships. Nevertheless, the deeper
spiritual journey—sacred waiting—leads us to the classic vocation
of the table waiter: his presence with us and his service to us.

Sacred Waiting
Presence SERVICE

In the chapters to follow, these two criteria will dominate our

definition of waiting. We’ll learn to steer away from the toe-tapping
impatience that waiting usually evokes from us, and we’ll learn
to embrace presence and service in a fresh way. Such an embrace
will take us a long way toward minimizing the impatience and
frustration we may feel in our faith and maximizing the joy and
peace of His table.

Getting It Straight
Unfortunately, when it comes to spiritual realities, we often
turn them completely around. We act as though God must wait
upon us. We carve out a few minutes for Him here and there and
expect Him to jump to attention when we call on Him. He is always
waiting for us to come to Him, people tell us. He is the endlessly
patient Father. Perhaps the story that Jesus told of the extravagantly
wasteful (prodigal) son, in Luke 15, reinforces this view that when
we finally hit rock bottom and come to our senses we can be sure
that the Father is waiting for us to return. That’s His role, it seems,

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while ours is to scurry around in life and keep checking in with

Him from time to time—like the table waiter with multiple tables to
serve. Each time He will gratefully receive what little attention we
might give Him. But such thinking violates a fundamental biblical
truth: The task of waiting falls far more to us than to Him.
Our prayer lives often betray this false
thinking, too. How many of us use prayer
as a time to tell the Father what we need The task of waiting falls
and what we think would be best?
far more to us than
“Lord, if you didn’t already know it,
let me tell you that this knee is really both- to Him.
ering me. Would you give me some pain
relief today?”
“Lord, that family over there could sure use your attention right
now. They’ve just lost a grandmother, and it would be nice if you
could serve up a special dose of peace and comfort to them.”
“Father, I’ve got a big day ahead at work, could you give me
an extra helping of wisdom?”
“Well, Lord, it’s the end of the day. Thanks for being with me.
Now, if you’d stay on duty throughout the night, too, and watch
over me, that would be great. Thanks.”
Such prayers sound suspiciously like menu orders at a restaurant:
we’re placing the orders rather than receiving them. Of course, the Bible
encourages us to make petitions and requests of God. The apostle Paul
did not hesitate to write: “Present your requests to God” (Philippians
4:6). And the Lord cares deeply for us and the issues of life that touch
us. However, we too easily cross the line and begin to view Him as
our servant rather than ourselves as His slaves. And our prayers become
a barometer of our attitude. We can’t seem to get it straight. We use
prayer to get His attention rather than quietly giving Him ours.
The Bible suggests that the onus for waiting lies with us. The
heroes of the faith all waited on Him. Their best moments arose

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from God’s timing, not their own. Indeed, God establishes all the
glorious covenants of Scripture after significant seasons of sacred
waiting on the part of His servants.
Noah walked with God—waited on Him—for 600 years before
the rainbow covenant was established after the flood (see Genesis
6–9). Abraham listened to the Lord and obeyed Him for nearly
100 years before the son of the promise would be born (see Genesis
12:1–4; 21:5). Moses was ready to do his bit to support his fellow
Israelites when he killed a harsh Egyptian taskmaster (see Exodus
2:11–12), but he had to wait on the Lord for forty years in the desert
before the Lord sent him back to Egypt to deliver the people (see
Exodus 3:10). David had been chosen and anointed to succeed Saul
as king of Israel, but he waited on God for over a decade before he
eventually took the mantle.
Henri Nouwen, one of the great spiritual writers of the late
twentieth century, wrote: “For many people, waiting is an awful
desert between where they are and where they want to go.” 4 He’s
right. But sacred waiting teaches us to embrace the desert and
relinquish our own plans.

Different Journeys
While the elements of sacred waiting remain the same—presence
and service—the outcomes vary enormously. As we’ll see throughout
this book, waiting on God produced different experiences for each
person and shaped each one differently. Each person learned unique
life-altering lessons as they waited on God. Their presence and service
to the Lord did not yield the same outcome in every case.
Noah learned endurance. Abraham grew in his trust of God.
Moses emptied himself. David discovered new depths of worship.
And Jesus learned obedience.
As we practice the art and discipline of sacred waiting, we’ll
discover that its outcomes differ for each of us, too. But we will see

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a common thread: attentiveness (presence) and obedience (service)

to Christ. Sometimes we’ll find ourselves very still; other times
very active. Occasionally waiting on the Lord will require solitude
on our part so that all the surrounding sounds can be eliminated
and we can hear Him more clearly. Other times waiting on Him
will be an exercise in serving others “as unto Christ.” One thing
is certain: We will only wait on Him with joy if we have deep
confidence in His love for us.
May the chapters ahead encourage and equip you for sacred wait-
ing, and for the joy, peace, and abundance that it always yields.

Group Discussion
1.  Describe some of the symptoms of “hurry-up” in your own
life. Does this feel under control or out of control?

2.  Consider the analogy of the table waiter. Is this helpful to

you in thinking about waiting on God? What else comes
to mind as you consider this analogy?

3.  This chapter defines sacred waiting in terms of our pres-

ence and service to the Father. How do these two terms
complement each other?

4.  How can we get it straight in terms of who waits on whom?

What are some small steps you might take to increasingly
give God the seat of honor in your life?

5.  Discuss some ways in which you might be more attentive

to Him (wait on Him).

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